Archive for the ‘Conceptual: highly sophisticated’ Category
Saturday, September 18th, 2010
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| Author: | Tara Kelly |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2010 |
I really liked this book: it's told from the perspective of a girl diagnosed with Asperger's and ADHD.
Her biggest challenge in the book was realizing that the labels "normal" and "abnormal" are nothing more than labels, and that nobody is the same, so "normal" is subjective. |
I found that her mental journey to that realization was very well put together and really hit home.
Note: High school level: drugs, sex.
-- Fizzy
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Harmonic Feedback |
Posted in Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Reading level: Sophisticated reader | Comments Closed
Friday, August 20th, 2010
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Some musicals strike us as perfect, or at least nearly perfect. We’ve seen Into the Woods nearly fifty times and would be willing to watch it weekly or more if we could afford to. The book is interesting to us, most of the lyrics are clearly intentional and speak to us, the music is complex and beautiful. Sure there are songs that we think could go, or be improved, but still.
Rent seems terrifically unfinished to us. My teenage daughter who did not experience the 1980’s when AIDS first began to wreak havoc with so many lives and who had never heard the acronym AZT was utterly confused by the initial half hour. (We paused the DVD to explain what was happening and why.)
We admired Rent as an impassioned, furious, context-free snapshot of that awful time. The performers on the DVD are gorgeous, with voices to match. But the music and lyrics don’t rise to the cause they represent. The perfect song that Roger runs away to Santa Fe to write is not.
Wonder if perhaps, if the creator, Jonathan Larson, had lived to see the show on Broadway, he would have refined it further.
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Posted in Broadway musicals, Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Death is a central theme, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, History, Music, Reading level: Grown up, Uncategorised | Comments Closed
Monday, June 14th, 2010
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| Author: | Charles de Lint |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
This is a book that can be placed under the category of "Urban Fantasy" : fairies and other fantasy creatures running around modern day cities...
Picked this up as a quick read. Not gripping per say, but interesting.
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It's about a girl who befriends a ghost and then becomes tangled up in the inner workings of the hidden fantasy world. I thought that this was a stand alone book, and have not read the 14 previous books, which I just learned existed, so it is definitely a fun fast read for those who enjoy fantasy.
--Fizzy |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Blue Girl, The |
Tags:book review
Posted in Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Dragons and/or mythological beasts, Fairy tales, Female protagonist, Fiction, Reading level: age 12 and up | Comments Closed
Monday, April 26th, 2010
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| Author: | Muriel Barbery |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
This book is remarkable, in that with every page I read, I was more captivated. For one thing, the author tells the story in a very interesting way: The story is narrated by two very different, but also very similar, characters. One is a 12 year old genius and the other is a 50-something year old concierge in the fancy hotel she lives in. So that's cool, but the writing style is what really got to me. Barbery gets very deep into some philosophical questions, that at many points I found confusing at first, but once I got into my "elegance of the hedgehog mood", I really enjoyed it. |
The way she uses language is just so PRETTY that I easily got sucked in. My only warning is that the ending is super surprising, although very satisfying nonetheless. I had to wait awhile to write my review because a) I didn't know what to say, and b) The ending got me pretty emotional, because the characters were so believable (I was almost crying on the bus when I finished it).
-- Fizzy |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Elegance of the Hedgehog |
Tags:book review, Parenting gifted children, suicide
Posted in Child-raising, Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Death is a central theme, Fairy tales, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: age 12 and up | Comments Closed
Friday, February 5th, 2010
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| Author: | Cory Doctorow |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | For grown-ups
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| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | For grown-ups
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| Genre: | fiction, cyberpunk |
| Year of publication: | 2009 |
Let me start by saying that I would like at least one of every invention described in Makers. I am particularly taken by the RFID/GPS/labeling/cataloging system that allows a person to locate any item they have tagged by typing in its name. But I would be happy to ride The Ride, or own any one or all of the tiny robots, the Super Marios, well, truly, any and all of them.
Doctorow also puts forward an interesting business model - the 6 months and you're out theory of manufacturing anything. Seems exhausting, but true to life. And may very well be the only viable model for hardware manufacturing in the future.
That said, Makers is the book that Ayn Rand would have written instead of The Fountainhead if she'd lived a few years later and chosen engineering rather than architecture as her metaphor.
In the Makers world, anyone with a moderate-to-high IQ is not only smart, but sensitive, creative, well-intentioned, and deep-down-to-the-core good (although sometimes that is not immediately apparent). Sure smart guys (and they are mostly guys, of course) may occasionally take actions that send others to the hospital for months at a time, but they do eventually realize the error(s) of their ways and take steps to correct them.
Women in the Makers world are very, very bright, attracted to Makers, attractive, moral, tolerant, thrifty, ... well, you know, they are pretty much not very reality-based.
Oh, and then there are the policemen. Seems that policemen (and lawyers) were pretty much put on this earth to physically and/or psychically destroy smart people. |
Anyway, the plot moves along at an involving pace. And you like and approve of and root for all the smart people who are constantly inventing all kinds of very cool things.
And then appears the very horrific random outburst of violence or kind of overly long sex scene (but then, I am probably not the target audience of this book; maybe the Powers That Be thought these were necessary).
So, anyway, I'm very glad I read this book. But I did feel that Death Waits was treated overly harshly. He is a very young smart person, no doubt, but he IS a smart person, if not an engineer. It's good that in some fictional universes, smart people are not the enemies. Now, in addition, I'd really like to visit a fictional universe in which smart women are people too.
-- Emily Berk |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Makers |
Posted in Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Fiction, Gifted, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: Sophisticated reader | Comments Closed
Monday, January 18th, 2010
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| Author: | Tracy Kidder |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | Non-fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1990 |
My first comment on this book read: "So far I am really captivated by this book, which is interesting because I didn't really expect to like it so much..."
This feeling lasted for the entire book. The writing style pulled me in so much that the story didn't even matter, although it is really cool as well. Kidder basically shadowed a fifth grade class in a poor, rundown, public school for an entire school year and wrote about the experience.
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He really got to know the teacher (Mrs. Zajac) and her students and so the reader really knows them by the end too. The difficulties that Mrs. Zajac encounters with teaching the kids range from students three years behind, to shyness, to racism.
Great book, I recommend it for anyone. (5 stars)
--Fizzy |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Among Schoolchildren |
Posted in Child-raising, Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Dealing with bullies, Female protagonist, Gifted, Reading level: age 12 and up, School | Comments Closed
Sunday, January 10th, 2010
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| Author: | M.T. Anderson |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction-dystopian |
This review seems like a spoiler, but it really gives nothing away, at all...
This book really got me worried about how horrible human beings are and what we're going to do to the world... It gave me a very depressing feeling while and after reading. It is set in the (near??) future, and most people are basically controlled by their "feeds" implanted directly in their brains, which are used mostly as an excuse to constantly show them thousands of advertisements. I guess the ending is supposed to be a little hopeful, in that the main character is considering fighting the feed, when he sees its awful power over humanity, but... I think hopeful is not a word that anyone can truthfully apply to this book. |
The writing style was very distracting at first, because it is VERY informal. I will explain with a quote: "I was like trying to sleep for the last few minutes of the flight, because... when we're goin hard i get real sleepy real easy, and I didn't want to be null for the unettes on the moon, at the hotel, if any of them were youch."
SO: Interesting. Very cool. Spooky. Makes you think. But definitely not cheerful. At all.
--Fizzy |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Feed |
Tags:book review, dystopia
Posted in Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Death is a central theme, Fiction, Reading level: age 12 and up, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
Saturday, January 2nd, 2010
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| Author: | An Na |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2003 |
I'm not sure how to rate this book, because the narration ranges from a five-year-old's perspective to that of an 18-year-old one. This is really interesting, but leaves most of the book as a very easy, lower-level read. However, this story about abuse and immigration is intense and scary. |
Yung and her family emigrated from Korea when she was five to find a better life. But her dad ended up drinking and life got very hard trying to keep their heritage while living in America...
--Fizzy |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Step From Heaven, A |
Tags:alcoholism, book review, immigration
Posted in Child-raising, Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Death is a central theme, Female protagonist, Fiction, History, Reading level: age 12 and up, School | Comments Closed
Saturday, December 19th, 2009
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| Author: | Oliver Sacks |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Sophisticated readers |
| Genre: | Non-fiction: Science |
| Year of publication: | 1998 |
My daughter and I listened to Dr. Sacks' narration of this book on audio tape. Listening to his quirky voice and sophisticated vocabulary requires intense concentration, but is well worth it.
My daughter was engrossed by the topics discussed, and inspired by the author himself. At one point, Sacks riffs on the wonders of the Paleozoic cycad forests, and my daughter, with love and admiration, exclaimed, "My but aren't WE a nerd?" (Acknowledging in the intonation of that sentence that she is one too.)
Here is her rather informally written review: |
The title of this book is a little misleading, because it doesn't only discuss colorblindness. The book is really a collection of three adventures that Oliver Sacks has had.
It is pretty cool, to me at least, because he discusses different islands that have not yet been modernized and upon which plants have been allowed to keep evolving at their own pace.
Sacks uses many science-y words, and I think I would have been a little bit overwhelmed by them all if I hadn't been listening to his stories as an audiobook, but the big words aren't really the point...
Anyways, super cool, with descriptions of really enchanting, science-y, yet mysterious places.
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Island of the Colorblind, The |
Tags:book review, history of science, medicine
Posted in Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Gifted, Reading level: Sophisticated reader, Science | Comments Closed
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
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| Author: | Jodi Picoult |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2004 |
I am not very satisfied with the ending to this book. The whole thing is very sad, and Picoult just HAD to add one more horrible twist... ANYway, this book is good, but as I said, horribly depressing, as you may expect from a book about cancer. The idea is that 13-year-old Anna has always been just a vessel of bodyparts to contribute to her leukemic sister for various surgeries, and she decides to sue her parents so she doesn't have to donate a kidney. |
The book is narrated by different people, including Anna and her parents, so it gives the reader a nice mix of perspectives. It gets a little bit mushy at times, and is full of tears and yelling and stress, but I really couldn't put it down to finish my math homework til I was done.
Note: Definitely a "mature" book, couple brief sex scenes, swearing...
-- Fizzy |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: My Sister's Keeper |
Posted in Child-raising, Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Female protagonist, Fiction, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: age 12 and up, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
